Guide to the Anne X. Alpern Papers, 1918-1974 AIS.2002.01
Arrangement
Repository
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Title
Anne X. Alpern Papers
Creator
Alpern, Anne X.
Collection Number
AIS.2002.01
Extent
17.6 Linear Feet(30 boxes)
Date
1918-1974
Abstract
Anne X. Alpern was a renowned jurist hailing from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She served as city solicitor of Pittsburgh during the 1940s and in 1959 became attorney general of Pennsylvania, the first woman to hold such an office in the United States. Alpern's papers highlight her activities and career achievements and provide a glimpse of her family life and hobbies. Court case files and newspaper clippings represent the bulk of the collection, but there are also other materials such as letters and photographs.
Language
English
.
Author
Charles Stanford.
Sponsor
Funding for this project was made available by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Publisher
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Address
University of Pittsburgh Library System Archives & Special Collections Website: library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections Business Number: 412-648-3232 (Thomas) | 412-648-8190 (Hillman) Contact Us: www.library.pitt.edu/ask-archivist URL: http://library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections
Biography
Anne X. Alpern was a renowned jurist hailing from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She served as city solicitor of Pittsburgh during the 1940s and in 1959 became attorney general of Pennsylvania, the first woman to hold such an office in the United States. Born in Russia in 1903, she moved to the United States shortly thereafter with her family, settling in Scenery Hill near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Although Alpern was interested in law from an early age, she trained as a teacher, receiving a Bachelor's Degree in education from the University of Pittsburgh in 1923. Encouraged by her father, Joseph Alpern, she received her law degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1927. Soon after she began working for the local law firm of Cunningham Galbraith & Dickson. At the time, female attorneys were not generally given the chance to argue court cases, but Alpern was persistent in her request for such an opportunity. Her employers gave her a case that nobody else wanted, and after a single night's preparation, Alpern went to court the next day and won. Within days she used this intense preparation method again, in another successful case. She continued this practice throughout her career.
In 1934, city solicitor Ward Bonsall hired Alpern to assist with a large backlog after Mayor McNair's election. Alpern worked long hours, though the job was temporary and without pay, often staying in her office all night. Her hard work led to success in cases such as Westinghouse Air Brake Co. v. City of Pittsburgh, which saved the city millions of dollars. As a result of her success, Bonsall promoted her to first assistant city solicitor in 1935. She quickly gained a reputation for a dramatic flair in the courtroom as well as an impressive mastery of the law. In 1942, Alpern was appointed city solicitor by Mayor Scully, the first time in Pittsburgh's history that a woman had been appointed to this position. In 1946, she was admitted as an attorney of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. That same year she worked with Mayor Lawrence to obtain a temporary injunction against a strike by workers for Duquesne Light which caused a brief blackout in the city. This was the first of several actions which exemplified her impartiality in the eyes of many, even as it alienated some of her supporters in organized labor and the Democratic Party. As city solicitor, Alpern was noted for promoting smoke control and improvements of the public transit system, resisting increases in utility rates and trolley fares, and working to expose and remove government corruption. She was a member of the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers (NIMLO), serving as president from 1947 to 1948, and worked with the Public Parking Authority of the City of Pittsburgh from 1947 to 1951.
In November 1953 Anne Alpern ended her service as city solicitor when she was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. Although the Democratic Party had nominated her, Alpern was elected with strong bi-partisan support. In 1959, the recently elected Governor Lawrence appointed Alpern to the position of attorney general for the state of Pennsylvania. This was the first time in United States history that a woman held such a position in state government. Alpern's jurisdiction in this office included the state police and the Department of Justice. One of her major projects as county judge and as attorney general was the reduction of case backlogs in Pennsylvania's courts – she frequently said that "justice delayed is justice denied". Alpern helped put regulations in place to prevent the abuse of money donated to public charities. She also worked unsuccessfully for the creation of a state-level Division of Consumer Protection, arguing that the Public Utility Commission was not effective in protecting people from the depredations of utility companies. In 1960 she began an investigation into allegations of voting fraud in Philadelphia involving the Democratic Party.
Early in 1961, Alpern was offered a position as the head of the Federal Power Commission by John F. Kennedy, but turned it down. In August of the same year, before her term as attorney general was completed, Governor Lawrence appointed Alpern as a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to fill a sudden vacancy. As an interim appointment to the court, she was required to run in the election of 1961 for a full twenty-one-year term of service. On November 7th she was narrowly defeated by Henry X. O'Brien. Analysts attributed this partly to the support she lost from Democrats after the voting fraud investigation, as well as her work to reduce retail milk prices and her opposition to the 1946 utility strike, which turned some union leaders against her. She also had experienced opposition due to her efforts to reform the state judicial system: her bill authorizing the appointment of court administrators had been defeated by the state legislature in June 1961. To compensate for this defeat, Governor Lawrence named Alpern to the position O'Brien had vacated in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County.
In 1962 the University of Pittsburgh conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws on Anne Alpern. During her second term as judge in the county court, she heard the case that resulted in the Port Authority of Allegheny County abandoning its "Skybus" public transit project in 1973. In 1974 Anne Alpern retired from the court and joined the firm of Berkman Ruslander Pohl Lieber & Engel. She died in Pittsburgh in 1981.
Anne Alpern was renowned for her legal achievements and for her success in balancing a public career with a private family life. She married fellow assistant city solicitor Irwin Swiss in 1937 and the couple raised a daughter, Marsha Swiss. Alpern took part in community activities and public charities, serving on the board of the United Jewish Federation, the United Fund, and Action Housing, among others. She received many awards throughout her career, including recognition as a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 1952, the Newspaper Guild Award and the Junior Chamber of Commerce Award in 1953, and the Award for Distinguished Public Service from NIMLO in 1953 and 1961. Since 1994, the Pennsylvania Bar Association has bestowed the Anne X. Alpern Award on outstanding female jurists in recognition of excellence and positive impact on women in the legal profession.
Scope and Content Notes
Alpern's papers highlight her activities and career achievements and provide a glimpse of her family life and hobbies. Court case files, some of which are closed, show many of Alpern's cases, both as an attorney and as a judge. Other types of records range from correspondence to reports from professional conferences to photographs. Some of the most readily-usable information is provided by a series of newspaper clippings, in folders and scrapbooks. These cover Alpern's career through articles and political cartoons.
Two sub-series of this collection within Alpern's personal papers come from Alpern's husband Irwin Swiss. These include a very limited set of records from his law practice and public offices, as well as journals, newspaper and magazine clippings, and notes on literature and politics, many pertaining to Zionism.
Further notes are found at the series level.
Arrangement
The contents of the collection are organized into six series:
Series I. Case Files
Series II. Professional Records
Series III. Personal Papers
Series IV. Newspaper Clippings and Scrapbooks
Series V. Photographs
Series VI. Closed Cases
Access Restrictions
This collection contains materials protected by the attorney-client privilege and, therefore, may be subject to review prior to researcher use. In particular, material in Series VI. is closed until further notice in order to ensure compliance with attorney-client privilege laws. Closed files are marked in the contents list. Please contact the Archives Service Center for more information.
Acquisition Information
Gift of University of Pittsburgh Barco Law Library on January 15, 2002.
Custodial History
These papers were housed in the University of Pittsburgh Barco Law Library where they underwent preliminary processing in 1985. They were transferred from the law library to the Archives Service Center in 2002.
Previous Citation
Anne X. Alpern Papers, 1918-1974, AIS.2002.01, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Preferred Citation
Anne X. Alpern Papers, 1918-1974, AIS.2002.01, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Processing Information
This collection was sorted by Sherry Jane 1985 and processed by Charles Stanford in July to December 2006.
Copyright
Permission for publication is given on behalf of the University of Pittsburgh as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Related Material
Papers of David Leo Lawrence, 1959-1966, AIS.1978.15, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Records of the Pittsburgh Railways Company, 1872-1974, AIS.1974.29, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Microfilmed Records of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, 1912-1964, AIS.1997.24, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Genevieve Blatt Papers, 1934-1977, Manuscript Group 283, Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg, Pa. Blatt, a younger contemporary of Alpern and fellow University of Pittsburgh graduate, was the first woman elected to a statewide office in Pennsylvania.
Papers of Juanita Kidd Stout, 1873-1998, MSS84478, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Stout was another contemporary of Alpern and was the first African-American woman to serve as judge of a court of record or general jurisdiction in the United States. Her papers contain correspondence with Alpern, as well as with Blatt.
Separated Material
Oversized materials and photographs are housed apart from the rest of the collection.
Bound reports and other publications taken from the collection have been cataloged separately. These include two issues of the Jewish Criterion containing articles by Irwin Swiss: "Thoughts and Impressions of the Zionist Convention" (July 6, 1928) and "Palestine in the Contemporary Jewish World" (January 25, 1935). These newspapers can be found in ais Journals.
Bibliography
Garraty, John A. and Mark C. Carnes, eds. "Alpern, Anne X.," American National Biography, Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999: 377-378.
Rubin, Victor. "Portia from Pittsburgh." Collier's October 20, 1946: 44-50.
Burgess, Milton V. "The Alpern Story." Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph January 28, 1951: 3.
Subjects
Corporate Names
Pennsylvania. Supreme Court
National Institute of Municipal Law Officers (U.S.)
Pennsylvania. Office of the Attorney General
Pittsburgh (Pa.). Department of Law
Public Parking Authority of Pittsburgh (Pa.)
Pennsylvania. Court of Common Pleas (Allegheny County)
